Arrival

I am in Berkeley, finally.

I am staying in a room upstairs at the Nyingma Institute.
If you visit the web page, my window is the first one to the right of the flag pole, on the third floor.

It's a learning center. I am in the work-study program.

Today was my first day assembling books at the Dharma House.

My moldy mushroom stained clothes are soaking in a mop bucket of pure bleach.

For now, all my pants are turning white. Some t-shirts too.

Next week, after Star Fish is regenerated, I'll be going back up to Sonoma to put finishes on the temples at Odiyan.

Star Fish

well, I've been driving this car that I named star fish.

It's a mercury topaz, a smaller sized sedan, 4 cylinder engine.
It has one headlight.


Last night, while I was hunting for a place to camp,
a deer charged right out in front of me. My reflex reaction of course
was slam on the brakes, and I fish-tailed on impact, skidding around this very winding
very treacherous highway called 101, about six hundred feet above sea level but fifteen feet (more or less) east of the sea. Those are sheer cliffs.

Somehow, I remembered someone said to me, if you hit a deer, keep going.
A little birdie whispered in my ear, or the schizophrenic part(s) of me that has
another voice said out loud, floor it. It's all I could do.
The deer sommersaulted over the side of the hood and into the ditch.

It happened very very fast and I was terrified.

I stopped.

I took deep breaths.

I smoked a cigarette.
My entire body throbbed and shivvered.

I turned around.
I went to look for it.
It wasn't on the road.
I turned around again.

There was a man standing there with a flashlight.

"Did you see me hit it?"

"No, I heard it. I live right up the hill there. I just let the dogs out to chase it out of the yard.
I didn't think it could run this far that fast."

"Well, it ran right in front of my car. There's nothing I can do. Is it still alive?"
I slowly approached. "Oh, it's a buck."

"He's not breathing."

Rogue River

Last night was cozy next to the river in Myrtlegrove.

Today I am in Brookings and plan to stay here for the rest of the weekend, recovering and preparing.

Brookings is a lily valley -- 90% of the world's Easter lilies are grown here.
It is also the place of the first ever aerial bombing of the American mainland.

Only two bombs have ever been dropped on this continent.

On September 9, 1942 a Japanese submarine, the I-25, surfaced and crews assembled and launched a small sea plane. The pilot bombed the forest of Mt. Emily but caused no real or lasting damage. The other dropped September 29 never detonated. Both attacks were carried out by a Japanese pilot named Nobuo Fujita. The submarine returned safely to Japan.

Twenty years later in 1962, Mr. Fujita returned to Brookings to attend the Azalea Festival and presented the city of Brookings a 400 year old Samurai sword he inherited and carried with him on his bombing missions. In 1992, fifty years after the attack, Mr Fujita returned again and planted a redwood seedling in the bomb crater as a token of everlasting peace. He died in 1997 and his daughter, Yoriko Asakura brought some of his ashes and buried them at the foot of this tree.

I am going to look at the tree right now.

Cape Perpetua

Named by Captain Cook for the Christian martyr Perpetua. Click the link and see for yourself.


Spent the night last night beside a babbling creek squeezed right between the Devil's Churn and Neptune. Nothing to report, unless getting growled at by a racoon counts as blog-worthy news.

SEASIDE TURNAROUND

There's a monument to Lewis & Clark right where Broadway meets the beach.

I'm making final preparations for my departure. As soon as I'm done, I'm leaving this place.

Next stop: Sonoma

The Magnet Mystery

"The moon governs the sex lives of many of the creatures and plants in the world. . . The moon exerts its influence on the seas twice each day in the form of tides. Many creatures therefore move in this twelve hour cycle. . .Porcupines, for example, feed for longer periods as the moon wanes. Birds, too, are influenced by the moon. Lapwings, which usually feed by day and roost by night, have nocturnal feeding orgies at full moon and consequently feed less during the day at that time. The influence of the moon manifests itself in other ways. Antlions, which build pits to trap insects, vary the size of their traps according to the phases of the moon. The volume of the pit is greater when the moon is full. No one understands exactly why -- or to what advantage --- antlions synchronize their hunting activities in this way with the phases of the moon. . . .

The list of living things that detect and respond to the earth's magnetic field is increasing daily. Scientists have discovered that many creatures, including bacteria, algae, primitive flatworms, limpets, termites, honeybees, salmon, tuna, sharks, toads, salamanders, sea turtles, birds, whales, dolphins, rodents, and higher mammals, including humans, can all sense and respond to the powerful pull of the earth's magnetic field. . ." p47

"In 1837, scientist Andrew Crosse attempted to create silica crystals by passing an acidic solution through a lump of iron oxide, causing a reaction that produces electricity. After two weeks, Crosse noticed tiny white protrusions on the surface of the electrified oxide. Accoding to his reports, over the next few weeks Crosse watched the protrusions increase in number, grow legs, and eventually detach from the iron and walk away.. ." p35

excerpts from "Secrets fo the Natural World: Quest for the Unknown" ISBN 0-89577-498-4

Strung Out --- looking for extra

I thought I might start trying to post an explanation for this wobbling planet project, something about electromagnetism, the tilt of the earth and how the north star, Polaris, drifts,superstring theory and bad astronomy
. . .but my batteries keep dying.

Instead of even bother to try and spell it out,
I'm just gonna post some more pictures for you to see
the place where I live. Try again tomorrow.

Maybe it gets a little easier to find the words later. . .





















all photos by bean

I am a shipwreck --- so there

Hanging out with Muriel's Ghost at Yaquina Bay Lighthouse

. I'm hiding with the shudders and she's looking through the window. There's another lighthouse a little further north at Yaquina Head. This where I am was rarely used: the passing ships couldn't see the light.





Tillamook Head

The top is the view of Tillamook Head from a place called The Cove,
and then there's me about halfway up, staring into the Pacific Ocean
sometimes feeling more like



The Wreck of the Peter Iredale

photos courtesy bean

(more soon)

haywire

It's been a busy month, and I have lots of things
to say and pictures for you to see, if only
I knew how to put them onto this web contraption
I like to call the monkey machine.

Coming soon!